


The Music Box

by r_lee



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just an unassuming little music box, a symbol of beauty and harmony against the background of war. How could it have been anything else?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music Box

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Josie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josie/gifts).



You would think that a name like Vicious would have given me pause, but I've always been either gifted or cursed with the ability to look beyond what's obvious. I'm a musician. Reading between the lines and improvising comes naturally.

♫ ♪ ♫

Our squadron leader was a man named Henderson, on his third tour of duty on Titan. Because he was the veteran and because he was the leader, I had an absolute and unshakeable faith in the man. Everyone always said third time was the charm, and I chose to believe it meant he was going to get us out of there alive. His second-in-command was a tall young silver-haired stunner who looked like he'd come up through the school of hard knocks but moved with the grace and speed of an angel. I was attracted to him like a drowning man's attracted to the water's surface. They say the military is no place for emotion, but I say it's the best place for it. When everything you do is a question of life or death, you owe it to yourself to live whatever life you've got to the fullest. Friendships form like fragile spider webs and because it's war, they're around one minute and gone the next. You learn to take advantage of them when you have the opportunity. With Henderson on one side and Vicious on the other, I felt pretty charmed.

Strength has always attracted me. It's one reason I went to Titan, to prove that I could be strong. Not to fight for someone else's shitty land grab, but I guess everyone had their reasons for being there. Some were patriotic, some were opportunistic, some were purely mercenary, and some, like mine, were selfish. Going to war to test your resolve is one way to do it, but it's not something I recommend. Of course, hindsight always gives more clarity and when I was there it seemed like a grand adventure. Be one of the boys, one of the crew, learn those all-important survival skills. That's what the recruiting poster said, and the idea of being surrounded by other people, other men who were strong and united in purpose, sounded a little bit like a dream come true to me. What the military recruiters failed to mention was that Titan was a lost cause from the beginning, a war set up to take as many pawns as possible from both sides, leaving only the strongest and bravest behind so they could recruit those strong and brave men for their secret drug testing program. If I'd known about that before I went, I never would have enlisted.

Hindsight. They also neglected to mention that a six-month tour on TItan meant sand and grit everywhere, from your eyeballs to your nuts, a howling wind that never ceased, and a forty-three percent chance of survival. If the other side didn't get you, the scorpions or snakes or malnutrition or bacteria-infested water would. For every supply drop that made it, another one was shot out of the sky well short of its target. The only things we seemed to have in abundance were cigarettes and weapons. The military saw to those two most basic needs for any soldier, and we used everything they gave us.

I remember the day one of our guys, a kid named Winston, snapped that photo of me and Vicious. He was young, only eighteen, and scared shitless so he spent his time documenting what went on there to help take his mind off things. When a sniper got him a month into our tour, the chaplain went through his belongings and asked me if I wanted the photo. I did. Winston was one of the first ones in our squadron to die, and it rattled me. Up until that point all the fighting had seemed like some glorified video game to me, with enemies who were little more than shadowy figures on the horizon. But when Winston died right next to us, I started thinking about the enemy in a way I shouldn't have. They were people, just like us, with lives and families and hopes and wishes and dreams. That's when I went to war with myself over what I was doing, and over what _we_ were doing. When third-time's-a-charm Henderson bought it, I started losing faith in my own survival skills. What do we do in situations like that? We gravitate toward the strongest tree in the forest and look to it for protection and salvation. That's what Vicious became to me: my hope for getting out of that place alive.

Look, the military is like any other place. It's got its politics and I wasn't under any illusion that Vicious actually needed me. I was the one who needed him, but he didn't seem to mind. We got a little closer, out of necessity. That silver-haired deadly angel moved up in the ranks and I have to say command suited him. He took it on seamlessly. He took care of me, of all of us, and if proximity fosters desire, that's nothing to be ashamed of. I'd sworn off women years ago, not that Titan's sandy death trap made any kind of breeding ground for romance. It didn't, and I'm not stupid. I knew Vicious didn't have those same kinds of feelings for me, but it didn't matter. In that situation, having a crush was enough. It wasn't like I was going to act on it, anyway. I'm no predator and wasn't even back before I enlisted. What I really starved for there was camaraderie, and that's something Vicious gave willingly. He told me he'd been chosen to enlist by his mentor. He told me about the woman he'd left behind, that she had hair the color of honey and eyes like the ocean and I could see something in _his_ eyes when he talked about her, or at least I thought I could. Pride, maybe, or possessiveness, but it glimmered there for a moment before he blinked it away, stoic and impassive and so self-contained I was afraid he'd spontaneously combust. If I had to pick one word to describe Vicious it would be _resolute._ Whatever his mentor's agenda was, and that's something he never disclosed, it fueled him and kept him going.

That's why I was surprised to hear the delicate sound of the music box. Softness and sentimentality weren't part of Vicious's m.o. The first time I heard those metallic tones was late at night when we were all down in a foxhole. Up above the wind howled, but the foxhole itself was like a sanctuary. Before my turn on watch I decided to grab a couple hours of sleep and as I drifted off, I heard this beautiful unexpected little melody. I sat up, trying to figure out where it came from, and looked around. As soon as I caught Vicious's eye, the music stopped.

I didn't hear it again for a long time, and I didn't mention it to him once in all that time. Men are allowed to have their secrets and their moments of sentimentality. One thing I did credit that music box with was the way it brought us closer. Vicious knew I'd heard it and knew I wasn't going to blow his cover with it, but just knowing that someone else knows your secret can open a person up. There's solidarity in it, and that solidarity engenders friendship, and if there's one thing I've always been attracted to, it's the concept of comrades. Acting selflessly on a friend's behalf is what a comrade does. Is there anything more beautiful?

Only the sound of a melody in a place bereft of music. Sure, the wind on Titan was its own strong undercurrent and the pounding of cannons and rifles made for a good reliable bass beat, but there was no actual _song_ until that music box. Should I have realized Vicious was toying with me when he befriended me? Maybe, I don't know. All I know is that Titan was a lonely place, and having someone to look up to made it so much less lonely.

Four months had passed, then five. One more until our tour of duty was over and we could go home, and in that last month we not only achieved some key military victories, pushing the front line forward and securing the pivotal town of Solstice, but I achieved some more personal victories. I'd finally gained Vicious's trust. We were more than comrades now, we were true friends. We sat together, ate together, talked together. Mostly, I did the talking and he listened but I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't attracted to the strong, silent type. We fought side by side, covered each others' backs. I'm not even ashamed to admit how much he meant to me and how much I came to treasure that photo of Winston's. I started to think that maybe, after the war was over or at least our part in the war was over, we could keep the friendship going. If I'd had my eyes open a little wider I might have noticed the best and most powerful soldiers disappearing, but my focus was on the end of my tour of duty and on staying alive so I could get back to my music. I knew my life wouldn't exactly be business as usual right away because being a soldier changes people, but I was desperate to regain some of that harmony and balance I only felt when I was playing my sax.

It was about a week before our tour was supposed to be over that I sat with my back against the cliff smoking, thinking about going home, and that was when I heard it: the brass cylinder hitting those pins as it turned, making music that was metallic but so beautiful, so lovely against the backdrop of war and death. For almost six months we'd survived. In another week I could be back on Mars and a few weeks after that I could be back at my usual gig at the jazz club drowning my memories in vodka tonics and Charlie Parker tunes. The sound of that sudden music was something to drink in. I moved over to Vicious and sat down.

"What's that song?"

He didn't look away from the music box in his palm, but he answered all the same. "Julia."

I knew that was the name of the woman he'd left behind. I didn't need to remind him that I knew, but I _did_ want to make sure he knew how good I was at keeping secrets, so I didn't mention having heard that music box once before. "Nice melody. You mind if I play that tune on my sax when I get home?"

There was something in his eyes, I didn't know what, but it put a lump in my throat. Maybe it was his desire for his Julia, or maybe it was the desire I'd always felt for him. I knew it would never be requited, but that didn't change my heart. Nothing could have changed that. I wondered if he could tell I was trembling when he placed the music box in my hand, his _sure, Gren, you can play it_ implied. That look in his eyes caught me, caught me right in the moment, and despite my training and all those finely-honed soldier reflexes, I was completely unprepared for it when he stood and pulled out his knife and pushed me back. What had I done wrong? I'd only befriended a fellow soldier, right? Was I _supposed_ to see my life flash before my eyes?

His knife sliced the scorpion in half before I even saw it mere inches away from my head. I'd grabbed the little music box so hard it left imprints in my hand for almost an hour after, and I think it took almost that long for my heart to stop pounding. It took a lot longer than that to stop feeling the warmth of Vicious's hand on my forehead. But I didn't know any of that in the moment, only that I'd thought he was going to kill me but instead, he saved my life. I owed him. Wordlessly, he sheathed that knife and moved away, leaving me with the bleeding corpse of the deadly scorpion and the gift of music. I let out a breath and knew that with this one week left it could either be death or life, but that I was going to live because now I had something greater to live _for._ I would do more than just survive. I was going to come out of this thing with the best friend I'd ever known. Maybe some day if the tides ever turned he could even be more than that, but for now one-sided was fine. It gave me something beautiful to dream about.

♫ ♪ ♫

"Do you still have the music box?" She stands by my wall of photos, her finger smoothing over that picture Winston took that I've torn apart and taped together again more times than I can count. Every time I hate Vicious, I remember he gave me the gift of music. Every time I remember the gift of music, I'm reminded of what he did to me. Allegedly. They could have just been telling me lies on Pluto. Military prison isn't known for its kindnesses and I _heard_ it was Vicious who testified against me, but they could have just been messing with me. Because I never knew anything officially, all I could ask myself was _why?_

With a nod, I move the music box out of its hiding place inside my piano. It took me a long time to get here and once I did it took a long time to get established and surround myself with all the things I didn't have on Titan or on Pluto. I might live in a slummy neighborhood, but it's home and I won't trade it for anything, at least not in the time I have left. Like Vicious did years ago on Titan, I hold the music box in my open palm.

Julia looks at it. Her mouth purses, slightly, but she doesn't give away a whole lot. "Open it up."

Open it? I turn the thing over in my hand. "But that might break it."

She shakes her head, her blue eyes filled with sadness. "I gave that to him, did he ever tell you? Before he left for Titan. In case he needed something to remember me by. I didn't dream he would ever..." Her glance moves from the music box to my face. "Go on, open it."

I pry the cylinder open, the one that plays the song named after the woman standing in my apartment, the song that closes every set I play at the Rester House. Inside, nestled against the mechanism, is what looks like a tiny battery. It falls out into my hand. "What…?"

Julia scoops it up, eyes narrowed. The single word _Vicious_ escapes her lips before she snaps the thing in two, opens the window, and throws it into the snow drift six stories below. A blast of arctic air rushes in, rustling the sheet music on the piano until I shut the window again. That's when she tells me it was a solar transmitter, like all the ones the opposition forces used to relay their whereabouts and it hits me like a blow to the gut that the rumors I heard on Pluto were true. It _was_ that silver-haired angel who framed me as a spy. I don't know whether I ought to laugh or cry.

The battle on Titan might be over, but my own personal war has just begun.


End file.
